Easy Refrigerator Pickled Carrots

These Easy Refrigerator Pickled Carrots are crisp and crunchy, vinegary with a hint of sweet, and garlicky with a mildly spicy kick. They’re so delicious and perfect for snacking!

this recipe

If you’ve got some extra carrots from your garden, the farmers’ market, or the grocery store and are looking for something new to do with them, make some carrot refrigerator pickles. It’s so easy (there’s no canning involved), and wow, are they packed with flavor!

Our summer garden is in full swing! There’s nothing better than eating fresh vegetables that you grew yourself right from seeds. They taste like they’re supposed to, you save money, and you can freeze some to enjoy during the winter months.

Thank goodness David has a green thumb. Me? Not so much. He grows it. I pick it and cook it. It works out great!

We’ve already enjoyed lots of radishes, peas, green beans, lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, and broccoli. The cucumbers, zucchini, peppers, and tomatoes are well on their way. And for the past week or so, I’ve been harvesting lots of these beautiful half-sized carrots.

We’ve mostly enjoyed munching on them fresh, which is my favorite way to eat carrots. We also cooked them up as a side dish for dinner, and I froze a lot of them to use later.

But we still have lots more left, and I decided to make some of these super simple carrot pickles for a different way to enjoy them. They last in the refrigerator for up to a month – and they stay crunchy – although we always eat ours much faster than that!

Now for the “hard” part: although these carrots are super quick and easy to put together, you must wait at least 5 days before you eat them.

Sure, technically, you could eat them after 24 hours, but I think you would be a little disappointed. The flavors will not have had enough time to develop and meld together. Trust me, the longer they sit, the better they get.

It’s hard to wait, but it’s totally worth it!

Ingredients you need:

• Fresh carrots
• Garlic (whole cloves)
• White distilled vinegar
• Water
• Sugar
• Kosher salt
• Mustard seeds
• Peppercorns
• Celery seeds
• Crushed red pepper flakes

Here’s a look at how to make Easy Refrigerator Pickled Carrots:

Tips & Tidbits:

• I use and recommend wide-mouth mason jars. It’s easier to pack the carrots into the jars, and (more importantly!) it’s easier to pick them out of the jar when you want to eat them.
• Make sure your jars are not cold (if needed, you can warm them up by running them under warm water). If they are cold, the sudden temperature change when you pour in the boiling-hot brine could cause the jars to crack (I learned this the hard way a long time ago).
• With this recipe, I always have enough brine (in fact, I usually end up with a little extra). If you ever happen to come up a little short, just add more vinegar or water to top off the jars.
• When pouring the brine into the jars, don’t forget to make sure you distribute the spices evenly between the jars so both get all that flavor.
• The garlic flavor will intensify over time. You can remove the garlic cloves at any point if it is getting too strong.
• The red pepper flakes add just a little bit of spicy heat that I love. Feel free to add more, less, or none at all.
• Just remember, since we are not canning, these pickled carrots are not shelf-stable and must be kept refrigerated. They will last up to 1 month. I always put the date I made them somewhere on the jar or lid.

Pickled carrots can be put in salads, wraps, on a veggie tray, served as a side dish alongside a burger or sandwich, or just eaten straight out of the jar as a super yummy – and somewhat addicting – snack!

I hope you try this Easy Refrigerator Pickled Carrots recipe and love it as much as I do. Thanks for visiting today!

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